Foreign News: Reactions to Aggression

We stand for rendering support to nations which have fallen prey to aggression and are fighting for their independence.—Joseph Stalin at the 18th Communist Party Congress, Moscow, March 1939.

To offer their personal support to Finland which had fallen prey to Joseph Stalin, last week thousands of young men in Norway, Sweden and Denmark rushed to the local Finnish legations and consulates, enlisted to go to Finland and fight. In Oslo, disillusioned Egede Nissen Jr., son of a prominent Norwegian Communist, was arrested for hurling a brick through a window of the Soviet Legation. Over 500,000 kroner ($96,650) was raised by popular subscription at Copenhagen and dispatched to Finland’s aid.

In Stockholm 10,000 stalwart Swedes, shouting “Long Live Finland!” and “Down with Russia!”, marched to the Royal Palace and cheered old King Gustav. When a Communist sympathizer shouted “Long live Stalin!” the angered crowd rushed to the offices of Ny Dag (“New Day,” No. 1 Swedish Red daily) and Stockholm police barely kept them from wrecking the premises. There was, however, nothing for King Gustav to do or say; a high Swedish official cautiously observed off the record, “Our one hope is to keep calm,” and Swedish Premier Per Albin Hansson fairly groaned to a Stockholm audience, “We all hope there exists a means to limit disaster.” But within two days Sweden raised 1,000,000 kroner ($240,000) for Finland.

“By next spring Russia will be in possession of all Scandinavia,” bitterly observed in London anti-Nazi Captain Franz Rintelen von Kleist (during World War I chief of the German intelligence service in the U. S.). “You will see that this thing is to be carried out in the same ruthless fashion as the invasion of Poland.” At the same time German newsleaks reaching The Netherlands declared that members of the German General Staff were urging the Fuhrer to seize Sweden by a swift blow before Russia can.

“Deep Regret.” At the punctilious British Foreign Office there was a “tendency to deplore” any too drastic embargoing or diplomatic break with the Soviet Union by President Roosevelt (see p. 15) lest Russia be forced more firmly into alliance with Germany. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons that “His Majesty’s Government deeply regrets this fresh attack upon a small, independent nation,” but realistic John Bulls in all walks of life could be heard remarking that Anglo-French military aid to Finland is “obviously out of the question.”

Meanwhile, London newsagents sold papers with such blood-red poster screamers as “THE MURDER OF FINLAND” and the Daily Herald, organ of the British Labor Party, declared dramatically: “The Union of Soviet Socialist ‘Republics’ is dead. Stalin’s new imperialist Russia takes its place. . . . Now finally Stalin’s Russia sacrifices all claims to the respect of the working class movement.”

In Vatican City the Papal newsorgan Osservatore Romano reflected the horror of His Holiness: “This ferocious Ivan sits in the Kremlin in a worker’s smock and after the heads of both enemies and friends have rolled, issues appeals to war to the people, regiments the wretched moujik in the Red Army, and transforms it into a blind instrument of oppression of the liberty of nations.”

In Rome some 300 uniformed Fascist youths, returning from afternoon drill, broke ranks and demonstrated violently in front of the Soviet Embassy. Most Italian papers were cautious in their comments but Il Telegrafo, organ of Foreign Minister Count Ciano, disapprovingly observed, “In the great Nordic plain of the Continent the wolves are having their way.”

Big Break? Outside Russia last week only the German press gave even lip service to the proposition that J. Stalin & Co. were justified in cracking down on Finland. In private conversations German officers gloomed that if the Red Army is kept fighting for any length of time the Russians will obviously cut down on the supplies they have promised to send the Nazis. Adolf Hitler’s own Völkischer Beobachter, observed in cold approval of Russia’s course: “Strong powers are only forced to exert pressure on the weak when malicious and selfish advisers mislead a weak power to refrain from adjusting its neighborly relations.” The whole Nazi press echoed the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung’s charge: “It was Britain who first made the Baltic countries, especially Finland, strategically interesting to Russia by introducing foreign tensions. . . . Never trust the British—when things get critical they leave you in the lurch.”

Greatest enigma of Europe this week is precisely the question: Who will leave whom in the lurch? In the chancelleries of Europe and especially in Paris it was beginning to be said: “More and more the war seems unlikely to be fought on the Western Front, and sooner or later an

Eastern Front will become a reality.” “The result of the war is not to be decided only by military operations,” Premier Edouard Daladier significantly declared. “In the final decision the evolution of international policy and the relationship between powers and the action of moral forces will play a big part.” Evolving at an ominous pace were the international policies and relationships of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini.

Anti-Soviet demonstrations occurred in many South American capitals last week and the press was unanimous in echoing famed La Prensa of Buenos Aires, which viewed with alarm the recognition by Russia of a Red stooge Government in Finland. This “proves to the world the danger of Soviet methods,” said La Prensa, “since it appears its policy is to utilize emissaries in all countries who remain hidden until an opportune moment.”